Bernie Sanders’s Liberty University speech, annotated
“You are a school which, as all of us in our own way, tries to understand the meaning of morality. What does is mean to live a moral life?”
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Do I assume that you are concerned enough of whether this is taking place to investigate. It would appear to me that Liberty should be concerned about its reputation with
the Christian public (and especially its supporters) to disclose how they use this occasion to instruct their students about a false world view.
Where do you think Paul (Saul) got his training about other world views? At the feet of those who espoused those views, or at the feet of Gamaliel, the teacher who refuted those world views?
[Greg Long]Your point was that Christians shouldn’t listen to false teaching without that teaching being evaluated and exposed by godly mature believers. I answered that this argument rests on the assumption that this is NOT happening at Liberty, which you have not proven.
Wrong. That wasn’t my point. That’s what you inferred was my point. You created a straw man and proceeded to beat him down.
[Greg Long]Thanks to you, KD, I realize I’ve made a big mistake when I’ve taught my “Exploring Other Faiths” class at our church, where we go to the Hindu temple, Buddhist temple, Catholic basilica, Jewish synagogue, and Islamic mosque to hear them each tell us first person what they believe.
What’s really strange, though, is that I have yet to have any of my students convert to one of those religions. In fact, they’ve all said they’ve been strengthened in their own faith and more informed about how to reach out to people of other faiths. Weird, huh?
See? “I have ‘em listen to all manner of false religious teachers and it strengthens their faith! As a matter of fact, I’m on vacation this Sunday and I’ve invited the pope to fill the pulpit.” If it works, it must be of God! The end justifies the means! In other words…”pragmatism.”
[Greg Long]I will leave it up to others to evaluate the merits of each of our positions.
As will I. That’s one popularity contest I can see I’ve already lost.
[jimcarwest]Where do you think Paul (Saul) got his training about other world views? At the feet of those who espoused those views, or at the feet of Gamaliel, the teacher who refuted those world views?
I’m sure Paul did learn about some worldviews with Gamaliel. He was then more prepared to go out and discern world views on his own after he got out of “school.” Sounds very similar to what just happened at Liberty….train the students to discern worldviews and then they will be more prepared to do it on their own when they are out of school.
I wasn’t equating “sitting at Gamaliel’s feet” with attending Liberty. The point was that Paul learned what he knew about other world views under the tutelage of what he considered to be a reliable source, NOT at the feet of proponents of those other fallacious world views. Of course, Liberty’s commission is to train students in a correct world view. That doesn’t involve giving some level of credence to false teachers by providing them a platform and the generous applause of an audience. That alone allows for some credence of the speaker’s views unless same/time rebuttal occurs. The media coverage allowed for no rebuttal. The vast media audience for an hour was a “student body” which Liberty allowed to be exposed to false teaching. That audience was given no later rebuttal by the professors of Liberty. Liberty, in effect, sponsored the propagation of a false world view by allowing it to be telecast. Why would they do that?
There are words that are easy to use accusingly as a kind of bludgeon without actually defining them or supporting the claim. The emotional punch tends to distract from the absence of facts. “Pragmatism” is one of those words.
Anyway…
1. Using wise means to reach good ends is not pragmatism because the alternative is to use foolish means to reach good ends, and the Bible is pretty much against foolishness. (I’ll cite the whole book Proverbs for that one.)
2. Therefore, the charge of “pragmatism” requires a little bit more support than simply observing that somebody is trying to reach a goal in a way that seems effective.
As for listening to ideas we’re opposed to, at least well enough to understand them thoroughly, see Prov. 18:13. The more thoroughly you intend to dismantle an idea, the more thoroughly you’ll have to understand it.
On the general call to do thoughtful battle against ideas, consider Prov. 15:28 and 2 Cor. 10:5.
As for the responsibility to be highly skilled in “answering,” see 1 Peter 3:15.
As for the wisdom of not isolating ourselves from those we are supposed to understand and answer…
- Proverbs 26:4-5 (the two verses go together)
- 1 Cor. 5:9-10
- Mark 2:15 (note who seems to be against this practice Mark 2:16)
- Matt. 5:16
And finally, on the value of listening to people who are misinformed, confused, ignorant, or just plain rebellious, once again Jesus’ many interactions with folks on the wrong side of the truth. …. truly too many list, but here are a couple.
- The Sadducees - Matt. 22:23-33
- The Pharisees - Matt. 22:34-40
- Pharisees and some Herodians - Mark 12:13-17
- Nicodemus - John 3
- Woman at the well - John 4
… and time fails to list Paul’s interactions with skeptics and truth haters in Acts.
(I anticipate the objection, “but none of these were giving speeches!” … to which I answer, where do these verses say “listen to and interact with unbelievers except when they are giving speeches”?)
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Aaron: Almost nobody who has posted here will disagree with your comments because they are pretty much spot on. However, you really haven’t addressed what is one of the main issues being debated, and that is: the propriety of exposing youth to a false teacher without any rebuttal, AND the wisdom of allowing one’s venue to be used to propagate all across the nation to millions of viewers a point of view that is then never answered, either because the MSM is not interested in your view, OR because you lack the funds to make sure your point of view is projected to those same millions of viewers. I think, for all your good intentions, you have missed the point, with all due respect.
It feels weird to be defending Liberty :D
… I mean nothing against the institution, really, but I’ve never been a fan either.
But I can’t really bring myself to see the Sanders thing as a big deal. Certainly the pragmatism charge is a strain.
As for rebuttal… does anybody really think Sanders is going to be the last candidate to speak there before election day? And do we really think they’re not going to have conservatives speakers outnumbering liberal ones at least 3 to 1 ?
So maybe there’s no public rebuttal today, but there is going to be lots of it by November 2016.
(And as someone has pointed out already, who knows what went on in classrooms after the event.)
Of course, LU has been around long enough now and is large and diverse enough now, that there is sure to be a sizeable left-leaning segment of the student body.
If anything, Sanders looks to me like a token liberal. If I were going to speculate wildly I’d be tempted to guess the idea was more like “Let’s lob a really weak liberal at them and get it out of the way so we can say we did it, then bring in the conservative heavy weights from here to November.”
But I really have no information at all on the strategy. It just seems plausible to me
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Larry Nelson gave some excellent examples of Old Testament leaders who were well versed in the teachings of their day - teachings of a godless society. Moses was taught the Egyptian culture, as attested in Acts 7:22 (see quoted above). As Larry also pointed out, Daniel and his companions were immersed in Babylonian secular education (and its inherent worldview), and God used that to prepare them for what He wanted them to do. All of that was in isolation from their home and family influences, and all of that was done at a much younger age than the current students at Liberty.
The apostle Paul was also no slouch when it came to being familiar with the teaching of the secular culture of his day. In Acts 17:28 (ESV) speaking to the men of Athens he quoted one of their own poets, “ ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’”
Paul had even read the writings of the people of Crete. In Titus 1:12 (ESV) he says, “One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, ‘Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.’”
These Bible leaders were not ones to shy away from the world of ideas. If anything Paul shows that knowing what society’s thinkers say and believe can actually be used against them in trying to point out their erroneous thinking as he tried to point them to Christ.
Moses, Daniel et al, and Paul would not have been derailed by the worldview(s) of their time(s) because they were familiar with it and could debunk it as they followed hard after God.
[KD Merrill]Can you give me one Biblical example, command or principle that supports your position? I’ve given you several to support mine. You’ve ignored them all. You’ve created straw men. You’ve argued from experience. You’ve argued that it works (yes, indeed, I’ll say it again - pragmatism). In fact, in all the posts that support Liberty’s position, none of them have come even remotely close to arguing a Biblical position on why it’s the right thing to do (which is the Biblical model - aren’t we supposed to be able to prove things that are acceptable to the Lord?)
Perhaps there is no Biblical support for that position? I would hope that might cause some to rethink where they stand. Frankly - and unfortunately - I doubt it would.
I always love it when someone tries to pull out the ol’ regulative principle on here to make there point. +1 for trying at least.
[Greg Long]Re: pragmatism.
If Liberty invited Sanders to speak for some rationale like: “Hey if we invite Bernie Sanders, we’ll get a lot more media exposure and become more well known and get more students!”, that WOULD be pragmatism.
What if their rationale was instead, “We have an open invitation to all presidential candidates to speak in order to expose our students to a variety of worldviews, so that we can help them evaluate those views through a Christian and biblical worldview.” That would definitely NOT be pragmatism, that would actually be biblical (I’m really surprised that I have to give you a biblical rationale for this point. Others have done so, but I would just point out the simple fact that Paul himself was quite familiar with other religious and secular worldviews.)
You must prove that the first rationale is indeed the true one for your charge of pragmatism to stick.
One other point…people spit out “Pragmatist” conveniently as a pejorative term when they want to make a point, but we are ALL pragmatists. We use pragmatism when we have four kids and buy a mini-van, when we schedule our church services or meal times, when we think ahead and save stuff and many other times per day. Pragmatism is only wrong when it violates absolute truth. One of the most mis-used terms around…
(I typed and posted this before I saw Aaron’s far more eloquent explanation of “pragmatism” above. I’ll just leave this here as an “amen” and a reminder to me to read the whole thread through before I post. :-) )
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